The Johannesburg Road Agency’s (JRA’s) Find & Fix mobile application (app) received top honours at the Microsoft Partner Network Awards 2014 held at the Inanda Club, in Sandton, Johannesburg, on October 2.
The app was developed by Enterprise Information Management solution provider Intervate and was officially launched in the first half of this year.
Intervate won the Microsoft Application Development Partner of the Year Award as a result of the app, while the JRA won the Public Sector Industry Award and the prestigious Managing Director’s Award for the app.
The aim of these awards is to honour Microsoft partners for delivering innovative solutions that directly address customer challenges.
In so doing, the JRA Find & Fix app created a partnership between Johannesburg citizens and the JRA as it provided the latest technology that allows citizens to report any road-related defects through their smartphones.
Since its launch in May, the JRA mentions that 5 728 citizens have registered on the app and 9 749 issues on potholes, traffic signals, storm-water drains, manhole covers, and other infrastructure matters have been reported.
The JRA mentions that one of the interesting features of the app is its ability to provide an accurate location of the infrastructure that requires fixing through the exact GPS coordin-ates. This enables citizens to take a picture and send the evidence through to the JRA. This also provides the JRA with a growing database of information that enables it to identify trends and improve its efficiency and productivity over time.
“This app has positioned the City of Johan-nesburg and the JRA at the forefront of technology and innovation, truly embodying the city’s tagline, to be ‘A world class African City’,” says JRA MD Skhumbuzo Macozoma.
He adds that this is a great achievement that benefits the community at large and forms part of the JRA’s turnaround strategy and service delivery drive.
The Find & Fix app – tagged as “snap it, send it, and we’ll fix it” – is freely downloadable on mobile operating system platforms, such as Windows Phone 8, Android and iOS.